City overview

Panama packs two oceans, a rainforest and one of the world's great engineering sites into a country you can cross in a day, and it does it with the largest and best-served kosher infrastructure in Central America. Panama City's skyline sits beside a UNESCO-listed colonial quarter and the locks of the Panama Canal, while the highlands of Boquete and the Caribbean islands of Bocas del Toro are a short flight away. The Jewish community numbers roughly fifteen thousand, mostly Sephardi families of Syrian and Lebanese descent, concentrated in Punta Paitilla, Punta Pacífica and Bella Vista. Kosher Panamá, the certification body of the Shevet Ahim congregation, supervises well over ninety establishments countrywide, and an eruv covers the main Jewish neighbourhoods.

ListMap

Map

Eruv

Yes

Panama City has an eruv maintained by the local community. It covers Punta Pacífica and Punta Paitilla, together with parts of Marbella and Bella Vista, Avenida Balboa and the Cinta Costera — which takes in the great majority of the synagogues, kosher restaurants and hotels a visitor is likely to use. Because it takes in only parts of Marbella and Bella Vista, check the boundary before relying on it at the edges, and confirm the weekly status with the community or with Chabad before Shabbat.